Friday, July 31, 2015

Welcome to Meet The Newbies, a co-hosted event from Rachel @ A Perfection Called Books and I, in which we introduce you to all of the new kids in school aka the 2015 debut authors.

Meet the debut:

Michelle Levy was born and raised in Littleton, Colorado, where she memorized books before she was able to read, tricking her parents into thinking she was a genius. At eighteen she moved to Los Angeles, to pursue a career in the entertainment industry. Michelle always secretly harbored a desire to write. She spent many insomnia-filled nights dreaming up stories that she never thought to write down. When she finally set out to get something on the page, the words flew out of her until she had her first completed manuscript, and she never looked back.
When Michelle isn't writing she is most likely working at her other job as a casting director, where in her many years of casting she has been privileged to work on projects such as Six Feet Under, Deadwood, Bruce Almighty, Mr. Popper’s Penguins, Vampire Academy: Blood Sisters, and many more.
She still lives in Los Angeles but desperately misses thunderstorms and clouds and, well, weather really (even the occasional snowstorm), so she visits Colorado quite often.

A gritty but hopeful love story about two struggling teens—
great for fans of The Spectacular Now, Willow, and Eleanor and Park
Tyler has a football scholarship to Stanford, a hot girlfriend, and a reliable army of friends to party with. Then his mom kills herself. And Tyler lets it all go. Now he needs to dodge what his dad is offering (verbal tirades and abuse) and earn what his dad isn’t (money). Tyler finds a job that crashes him into Jordyn, his former childhood friend turned angry-loner goth-girl. She brings Tyler an unexpected reprieve from the never-ending pity party his life has become. How could he not fall for her? But with his dad more brutally unpredictable than ever, Tyler knows he can’t risk bringing Jordyn too deeply into the chaos. So when violence rocks his world again, will it be Jordyn who shows him the way to a hopeful future? Or after everything, will Tyler have to find it in himself?

Thanks so much Michelle Levy for participating in Meet The Newbies. Get to know her two main characters with ten random questions.

Getting To Know You:
Ten Random Questions

Name: Tyler
Blackwell

Age: 17

Question 1: What are
you most proud of?

Answer: A few
months ago I would’ve said my scholarship and letter of intent to Stanford to
start as running back. Now? I don’t even know.

2. Are you a dog
person or a cat person?

A: Dog. I have an
Australian Shepherd named Captain Jack Sparrow. My mom named him.

3. What do you think
would be the hardest thing for you to give up on?

A: I would say football,
but, I don’t know, I guess it hasn’t really been that hard.

4. Name three things
in nature you find most beautiful.

A: There’s this
trail in the foothills by Red Rocks Amphitheatre I like to run. The rock
formations are pretty freaking incredible. So that’s one. I guess the
mountains, though sometimes I take them for granted. Like they’ll just always
be there. And I like giant shake-the-earth thunderstorms. Also my mom’s
favorite.

5. What do you miss
most from childhood?

A: My mom.

6. What is your
biggest regret?

A: That I didn’t
get home in time to stop her from slitting her wrists in the bathtub.

7. Are you happy with
your life right now?

A: What do you
think?

8. Who do you look up
to?

A: I don’t see
the point. They’ll just let you down anyway.

9. Are you usually
early, late, or right on time?

A: Right on time.
Except the once.

10. Would you give a
homeless person CPR if they were dying?

A: Of course. Now
ask me that again about my dad.

Name: Jordyn
Smith

Age: 17

1. Do you like to
shop?

A: Seriously? Did
you ask the guys this question?

2. What would be your
ideal first date?

A: Next. Question.

3. What other
languages do you speak?

A: Is that your
way of asking what my ethnicity is? I speak English. Because I am American—born
and raised right here in Colorado. My dad also speaks English because he, too,
is American—born and raised in San Diego. His
parents were Malaysian. Oh, and my mom is white. Does that answer your thinly
veiled question?

4. Tell me about
someone you really admire.

A: Finally.Um, probably my mom. I’m proud of the
way she handled the divorce. And that she and my dad are still friends.

5. What do you miss
most from childhood?

A: I miss when I lived
with both my parents in our old neighborhood. I had a trampoline so I was
pretty popular with the neighbor kids. And then my parents split and we had to
move and that was that. I still really miss some of those old friends, but you
move away and you all just kind of lose touch, you know?

6. What would be
harder for you, to tell someone you love them or to tell someone you do not
love them back?

A: Oh, wow. I
think the not loving them back thing.

7. Are you usually
late, early, or right on time?

A: Late. Much to
my mother’s dismay.

8. Are you a cat
person or a dog person?

A: Well,I volunteer at an animal shelter/hospital
so both. Okay, fine, I’m a dog person. But cats are cool, too.

9. When was the last
time you lied and to whom and why?

A: Okay you guys
have officially redeemed yourselves from the first three questions. Let’s see .
. . The last time I lied was probably . . . at the animal hospital. I reassured
a woman about her cat’s condition when I knew the odds of him surviving were
basically none. I did it because I was leaving shortly and if she started
crying I was going to lose it too.